A Wild Welcome from S.F. Fans
By William Chapin
The
Beatles ended their United States tour on a noisy note of triumph last night,
to the cheering adulation of 25,000 screaming worshippers in Candlestick Park.
For 33
minutes, they sang their songs from a big, well-guarded stage at the edge of
the infield grass as their audience literally shrieked the intensity of its
pleasure.
The
crowd had been noisy before, applauding the earlier acts on the program, but at
9:27 it really let loose: the moment was
at hand.
The
four musical English-men wearing dark Lincoln green double-breasted Edwardian
suits and open collared silk shirts – suddenly emerged from the Giants’ dugout
and ran to the big, fenced in stage above second base. Bedlam.
They
opened with “Rock and Roll Music” and closed with “Long Tall Sally”-singing
eleven songs in all before they quit at 10pm.
And during every moment of it, the Beatles had this particular little
world squarely in their hands.
And the
crowd, although howling appreciative, was, at the same time, markedly
well-behaved.
During
the entire time the Beatles were on the field, there were just three attempts
by frenzied fans to reach them: At
9:40pm, a group of about five boys climbed over a fence from the nearly empty
centerfield bleachers and sprinted toward the rear of the infield stage. A covey of private police quickly intercepted
them. At 9:47 pm, another group of
about the same size tried the same tactic over the same route and with the same
results. And just after 10pm as the
Beatles were leaving the stage, a husky, disheveled boy jumped onto the field n
ear third base and put up a rousing battle with four guards before he was
subdued.
The
weather was pleasant- clear with only sporadic winds and reasonably mild temperatures,
although Beatle Paul McCartney, in telling the audience good-by, apologized for
the cold.
The
fact that the crowd was relatively subdued – in action if not in noise- was at
least I part attributable to the almost unbelievable set of security measures
invoked to keep idols and idolaters safely apart.
Their
stage, for instance was also a cage. It
was a platform elevated five feet above the infield surface, and it was
surrounded by a metal storm fence six feet high. Police – private and otherwise were
everywhere.
Before
the show started, a Loomis armored car was backed into position near the
enclosed stage. And when the singers
left the stage they jumped into it and were driven off the field surrounded by
trotting, nervous-looking guards.
The
Beatles were perhaps the only calm people at the ball-park. While they waited their turn onstage they sat
in the visitor’s dressing room- unmindful of the roaring crowd outside –
doodling artistically and talking quietly.
They
all had Pentels - those Japanese marking pens.
John Lennon drew an elaborate yellow sun on a tablecloth. Paul McCartney and George Harrison drew what
one observer called “psychedelic drawings” on foolscap – McCartney’s
flowerlike, Harrison’s a face and Ringo Starr drew a small face inside a paper
match folder.
Through it all they talked and
chatted with old friend Joan Baez or good naturedly answered the questions of
the reporters there: about crowd
reactions on their trip, their future plans, and their current hits “Yellow Submarine”
and “Eleanor Rigby.” Drummer Ringo was
asked if the group had experienced any hostile crowd reactions as a result of
the controversy over Lennon’s quoted remarks about Jesus Christ. “No,” he said, “for us it’s been the same as
eve because we’ve been so heavily guarded.”
Ringo said the group has no plans for retirement and will continue to
perform as long as they are “with it.”
He said they plan to make a movie in January – storyline still
indefinite. Ringo, who’s featured on the
disc, was asked to define a yellow submarine.
“What’s a yellow submarine? It’s
nothing at all,” he said. “It’s just one
of those silver ones painted yellow.”
The
song, ‘Eleanor Rigby’ is about lonely people – about the life and death of
Eleanor Rigby, who keeps her face in a jar and puts it on when she goes to the
door and about Father McKenzie, the priest who buries here. Lennon, who wrote the song, was asked if any
particularly profound meaning was intended.
He said no. “Just look at it as a
story about Eleanor Rigby and Father McKenzie.”
Their
airport arrival aboard a charter American Airlines jet from Los Angeles had
been unceremonious, and even dull. The
San Francisco Airport terminal buildings had been scouted determinedly all
afternoon by small bands of teenagers trying vainly to learn when and where
their heroes would arrive. They were as
much in the dark as ever when the plane finally touched down at 5:25pm and
taxied out of sight and out of reach to the old Pan American terminal at the
northeast end of the field, more than a mile from the main terminal. There, they were met only by the wall of
grim-faced police and perhaps 50 members of the press.
They
posed grudgingly for photographs and then along with the 40 plane passengers –
the performers appearing with them at Candlestick—they boarded a chartered bus
and, proceeded by the armored car and a police car, set out for Candlestick.
They
found the stadium gate locked and during the moments it took police to let them
in, the surprised fans descended, climbing over the armored car and the bus
which tried to elude them by circling the parking lot. The tour brought them before thousands of teenagers in 14
cities, where they put on 19 concerts.
